Elevate Your Brand With Authentic Case Studies That Resonate

Adam Weeks:
Hello, this is Adam Weeks from Open Channels fm and I am really excited to talk to you guys today about case studies. Case studies are a really big deal. If you’ve ever tried to do one, you know that they’re. They’re not easy. You’ve probably been asked to do one or you’ve read them. And I really believe in the importance of our companies in this industry doing case studies. It’s telling good stories. And I chose someone who has done a really incredible case study lately. This is Elena. I’m going to let her do a quick introduction of herself and then we’re going to jump into the importance of case studies in our industry. Elena, tell us a little bit about who you are and what you do first.

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
Thank you for having me today. So, yes, I am Elena and I lead the sales and marketing efforts at Servebolt. We’re designed to remove the technical bottlenecks. So we are here to prove that normal can actually be a lot faster.

Adam Weeks:
All right, well, thank you, Elena. I’m so glad that you’re here. Yeah, Servebolt’s been doing good work for a long time and there is a particular case study that you did that caught my eye. And I’d. First off, before we jump into what Adina is and the great work, it’s a nonprofit organization that’s doing some really cool stuff. Could you tell me a little bit about how you think about case studies, why they’re important, why you do them? Because they’re not easy.

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
Yeah, for sure. So, as I’ve mentioned, at Surfboat, we talk a lot about performance, but performance itself is an abstract concept until we see it changes a business or organization. So I would say this is where exactly case studies come in. In marketing and sales, where I’m actually operating, we often fall into that trap of actually selling features. But customers don’t buy features. They. They buy the outcomes. So I would say that the case studies are the bridge between here’s what our tech does and here’s how it will change your life.

Adam Weeks:
Awesome. So, yeah, so we’ve got this, Adina, we’re going to link to this case study because I really want everyone to just look through this. The pictures, all of it is so engaging. Could you tell me. Let’s use this as an example. So Servebolt hosting company hosts for all types of different Types of organizations and this is one that I’m sure you guys couldn’t pass up. Like, oh wow, they have an incredible story. We were able to make a big difference for Adina. Let’s start with, can you tell me just who Adina is and for those who aren’t familiar?

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
Yeah, absolutely. I would love to. So this one, this case study was a special one because the stakes were high. So Adina does an incredible humanitarian work. They’re helping children with disabilities and providing education. Their story began roughly 25 years ago in Bergen, Norway with their mission to help children in Romania who contracted HIV in hospitals. Over the time, team realized that urgent help wasn’t enough on its own to break the cycle of poverty. So Dina evolved into a bit more holistic approach supporting not only the child but also the environment around them. Families, schools, communities. They also have, have built major programs in Uganda where their focus includes helping vulnerable children with injuries or disabilities. Access operations, rehabilitation and critically return to school. That’s one of main goals. So most recently Adina has been laying the groundwork to support children and young people affected by the war in Ukraine with clear long term intention to be present. Beyond the headlines.

Adam Weeks:
Wow. Yeah, it’s an incredible, it’s an incredible organization doing incredible work. And so as you’re telling the stories of your different clients, I’m sure they came top of mind. I want to just read the title and then the first line because I think it’s so important. Accelerating impact. How Adina foundation built a 2A 2.6x faster digital future. And then the first sentence. Here at Servebolt we’ve always built around two core missions, performance and sustainability. But over the last year a third mission has become impossible to ignore. People. All right, So I love that that third mission, People, People is at the heart of it. None of this, you know, obviously it is all about the people. When a little bit more of like kind of your personal experience, what was it like to, to get this story out of them? How to. Because they, you know, they’re, they’re doing the work, they’re doing incredible work with the kids and, and like hosting like that’s, that’s not important but like yeah,

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
on point.

Adam Weeks:
Tell me about that.

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
So as their work in Ukraine accelerated and their plants expand, began investing more seriously in more modern digital presence, so be it. Social media, newsletters, campaign and new ways to tell their stories. And apparently at certain points like, like many NGOs, they realized that their digital presence is struggling. They realized that their website is struggling. It’s slow, it’s hosted on an outdated infrastructure. And when you’re an NGO, basically your website is the lifeline for donations and awareness. So if the site is slow or crashes during a campaign, you’re just, you’re not just losing your online presence, you’re losing the ability to help people. So this is the point. They’ve realized that this website actually needs a sustainable service, a reliable partner and this is when they reach out to us. So we’ve migrated them to Servebolt. But I would say that it wasn’t just a move. We looked at the environment holistically and we provide them this kind of a high performance hosting that they needed to ensure that no matter how much traffic they got, their website would stay stable. I’ve mentioned that we’re obviously obsessed over millisecond response times but when we look at Adina foundation, those milliseconds matter because they ensure that a donor doesn’t drop off the page. And I would say that’s a performance with a purpose. Using the high end infrastructure to support their high end mission.

Adam Weeks:
Yeah. Oh, it’s very cool. I love this story. It’s a great one. Again, I encourage anybody to check this case study out. It is an example of the kind of case study every single company wants to have because Servebolt was in that position to build a custom solution. As you’re thinking of case studies and creating them, what are some of the components? Like what are you thinking about when you’re crafting putting together a case study? What are the different parts that make up a good case study?

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
So it’s most importantly to make something that people will actually want to read. That’s the most important part, I would say. So yeah, because most case studies read like a technical manual mixed up with a press release. They don’t have a so. So if you only provide the data, it’s kind of a lab report, I would say. So if you only provide quotes, it’s a testimonial. So you need to have more than that to have a case study. You need a story to tell. So to make them readable, we, we follow one simple rule. The customer is the hero and we are the guide. So I would say if you want to actually have people read your content, you need to use a narrative structure, not just a data dump. You have to follow the hero journey. Every business decision is basically a journey. So if you want to grab readers attention, you have to cast that rose correctly. Most brands try to be the hero, but we know that the customer is the hero. We are just the mentor, the one who gives them the lightsaber so they can win the battle.

Adam Weeks:
The Obi Wan Kenobi. You’re not Luke Skywalker, you’re Obi Wan Kenobi.

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
And a story is actually good when there is a villain. And in our villain, it isn’t a person. It’s the frustration, whether it’s the lost revenue, the technical debt, or the performance issue. So this is the actual villain that you need to have?

Adam Weeks:
Yeah, yeah. It’s that, you know, we don’t make decisions unless there is some type of a problem. There’s a threat if everything’s good. If I, you know, if I’m, if I’m sleeping good at night, I don’t need a new mattress. If I’m full, I don’t need to go out to eat. If I have fast hosting, I don’t. Not thinking about that. But if my website isn’t performing or some of it is, like, I think my website’s fine. And not even knowing that their website could be a lot better, you know, that their website isn’t performing well, I think that’s going to be a problem sometimes too.

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
Yeah, exactly. People love to read about this kind of a middle of the story. Where were the hurdles? How did you handle the problem in this case, the migration. This is where you basically prove your expertise and you build trust. But it also shows that you’ve been in the trenches and you know how to get the hero on the other side safely.

Adam Weeks:
Awesome. Well, as we were talking about before, you know, getting a really good case study, having your clients tell you all the information, it’s super easy, right? Like, it’s not, it’s not hard at all. They, they want to share all the stuff and they answer emails right away. That’s not true. Tell me, what is it? Like, what are some of the tricks? What are some of the things that you have found? Because to do a case study, you need the customer to give you information. You need quotes, you need photos, you need different parts. How do you encourage your clients to help you build that case study?

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
Yeah, that’s a great question. Because we all know how hard it is to, to get to, to produce those. So yes, that’s the tricky part, I would say. And it’s funny because on paper it looks super easy. Problem solution, results. And yes, and because of that, case studies are probably the first action point of every GTM document. But in the real world, I would say that’s the elephant in the world. In the room for Every marketing character you can have the best data, the best writer but if the client actually won’t agree to participate, you, you have nothing. So yeah, getting a client to actually agree to a case study is sometimes like pulling teeth. So yeah, you always ask yourself why is it so hard to get them say yes. I call it kind of the participation paradox. Probably the more successful the project is, the busier the client usually is and probably less time they will have to talk about it. So yeah, there are quite a few fear factors that probably would explain why it’s kind of difficult for the other party to participate. We can go through them but yeah, to, to tell the story. Yeah to tell a great story. First the client has to admit they had a problem. Yeah, we were frustrated and many brands, especially enterprise level or high profile ones are terrified of looking vulnerable. They don’t want their competitors to know they were struggling. So this is probably one of the most common reasons why we kind of often face such kind of decline and not willingness. Yeah.

Adam Weeks:
Nobody wants to admit that they, they had a problem but obviously if everything was going well they wouldn’t have maybe needed you, you know so like yeah, this is, this is a thing that we all face but it can be a struggle. Any specific things that you, that you do to help frame why they would want to like how do you, you know any tricks that you have that like oh yeah, I, I wrote this for them, I gave them an example. What kind of things help get them over that hurdle?

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
Yeah, this is the where the fundamental shift you have to make actually. So if you approach a client and ask can you help us with the case study? You’re already, you’re basically Asking for a favor. So instead I would say you should approach us. We want to feature your success story because most brands constantly are looking for high quality backlink opportunities or industry pr. And high quality, on the other hand is expensive and time consuming to produce. So I would phrase the case study as a free professional asset. That is for them. Most importantly, we can help the individual who is participating in the case study to be a thought leader. So the person who we’ll be talking to, the CTO, the lead dev or the marketing manager, will kind of look like a superstar to their boss.

Adam Weeks:
Nice. Yeah, no, I think that’s a really good way to frame it is that this is, you know, two companies coming together to share a success story. But like any story, it has to have a villain. It has to have something that was wrong. And that’s why we make. And that’s I think the difficult part to overcome. But like, what I’m seeing here in the like the Servebolt case studies is that it’s done so well that they’re like, yeah, like it does, you know, share a story of struggle, but it does elevate them. It gives them a, you know, those, those backlinks. It helps with their marketing. And so it does become that, that win win. And I think you, you’ve done that beautifully here.

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
Yeah, you’ve, you’ve basically set it really well. It needs to be a mutual value exchange. It’s a win for the brand, obviously, but it should be also an equal win for the client. It’s equally important. So for the client, for the person who chose a servo, the case study is kind of a proof for their board or for their CEO that they made a great strategic move. It’s the kind of the external gold star for their professional record and for example, for organization like Adina, their mission depends on visibility and by being featured by us, they get an access to our ecosystem, our partners, our social following, our industry influence, and we are providing them with this free pr. They might not have the internal resources to execute. And for NGO, it’s extremely important and kind of supports their mission.

Adam Weeks:
Yeah, no, absolutely. I think that’s, that’s a great is, is finding that win, win. I think it’s, this is a good example of good things usually aren’t easy. Like it’s, it’s, it’s like part of it being difficult is where the value in this is and people are thinking about, you know, should I do more case studies? We don’t have a lot of case studies or I’ve never done a case study. What kind of encouragement would you, would you give them if they’re thinking about doing a case study?

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
Yeah, I would say that every marketer has been there staring at the blank customers page on the website while the sales team is screaming for social proof. So I would say in this case the biggest mistake is probably waiting for six months after a project is finished or a client is onboarded to ask for a case study. Because I would say that the emotional error has faded by then. At the moment, big happiness. As soon as the site goes live or the client says, wow, this is fast. Go and say, I’m so glad you’re happy. We’d love to feature the success so that our audience can see the great team, the great work your team is doing. And they don’t respond, just keep asking. It should be mentioned during the onboarding, after onboarding, ongoing support. So the idea kind of gets in their brain and yeah. Tell the clients that you shouldn’t have to write a single word. You can just record the 15 minute Zoom call, transcribe it and write the draft for them. Make it easy.

Adam Weeks:
Yeah, yeah. Those are a lot of really good tips. Like one thing that we might like. Oh, well, we want to be working with them for a long time. We want to have them for a customer for five years before we do that. But I like what you’re saying is, you know, as soon as you’ve done the work for them, that’s when you want to do it.

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
Say we fold into the same trap as well. So we waited for too long and we waited for the perfect time. But sometimes the perfect time never comes. And yeah. So don’t risk losing this perfect opportunity. Just tell the story.

Adam Weeks:
Yeah. And I like how you mentioned that in the onboarding when you’re starting, you’re kind of prepping them like, hey, this will be coming. We expect we’re going to do a great job and if we do, we want to make sure we tell people about it and using that case study and constantly talking to them about it.

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
Yeah. And we try to involve also the sales team into that because they’re the ones who engage with the customers on a day to day basis. And it’s one of the most common objections from them, I would say because without a doubt it’s the fear of bothering the client. You know, sales and support teams are super protective of their relationships and they should be. Yeah. When you ask a sales rep to basically help you source a case study, their immediate reaction will be, I just spent six Months. Building this relationship, building this trust with the person asking for a case study feels like I’m asking for a favor that I haven’t earned yet.

Adam Weeks:
There you go. I love that. Yeah, it’s a confidence being like that we want to do a case study with you is a confidence that we did a good work for them. And that, yeah, that’s fantastic. So as we’re wrapping up here, we’re kind of just back up a little bit just to kind of summarize what we have. We know that case studies are important to do. It can be discouraging work because it’s not easy. You’ve got clients that are busy, they’re doing other things. It’s not super important to them or they don’t feel it’s important to them. Another part about case studies is that you do all of this work and you send it out into the world and then did sales go up? We don’t know. Like, tell me a little bit about you. You’ve told the story, you’ve done all the work to get the photos, get the quotes, you did the zoom calls, you wrote this incredible piece. And now what? How do you get people to actually care or to pay attention? What are some of the things that you’ve done once the case study has been completed?

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
Yeah, that’s a great question, actually. And probably it’s even more tricky than actually crafting the. The case study itself because yes, case studies can only be successful if they have impact. And to have impact, these stories must be shared. And from marketing perspective, yes, it’s kind of tough to determine case study success because metrics such as page views, time spent on page track the level consensus of the story, but not how it was received by the readers, which is highly subjective, or how it might actually influence the deal, which is. Is obviously the ultimate goal. So case study success to me is if I can capture the story, then our PR team can pitch it, pitch it. And if it gets picked by one of the industry or business publications we worked with, another big success is when these case studies get used by our demand gen or lead or sales staff, when the stories help to either attract prospective customers or to to speed up the sales cycle. Given that about 80% of marketing content goes unused by sales, I would say that if sales is using a case study, that’s a good thing. They wouldn’t be using it if it wasn’t working. Another way we measure case study success is by checking to see if the story has influenced deals in the pipeline. If deals are Being closed and the sales are thanking you and telling you that they’re getting exactly what they needed from you. I would say that’s the measure, measurement you needed.

Adam Weeks:
That’s a good one. You know what I like about that is, does the sales team, are they excited about the case study? Because part of when you have a company, maybe not all the parts really know all the different projects. Like, yep, I’m working on sales. I’m doing this thing. Oh, here’s the case study. We, we did that for this company. I’m proud of the company that I work for. They did an incredible job. I can’t wait to share this with my prospective clients. And I think that that’s also. Yeah, like you’re saying, kind of a metric. Like, are they using it? Are they excited about the case study? And I think that’s valuable in and of itself. Is that. Is the. Is the internal team excited to. To read the work that we’re doing?

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
Yeah, absolutely. I would say, because a case study works 24 7. It’s basically their colleague, the salesperson that never sleeps. So while the team is offline, a prospector in another time zone is reading the story and realizing that we’re the solution to their problem. So it handles the proof of concept phase before they even hop on a discovery call. So I would say yes, they’re super excited, always happy when we announce that we’ve managed to release a new one.

Adam Weeks:
That’s awesome. In sales, in marketing, there’s this concept of people like us do things like this. And essentially it’s this idea that in the case of Adina, this really great nonprofit organization that is doing great work, they are an aspiration for other companies out there, for other organizations doing good work. And there is, if they have success like this, I want success like that too. And I think that case studies are an incredible way to communicate that concept of people like us do things like this. And I think that’s fantastic. Excellent. As. As we’re wrapping up here, You’ve shared so many great insights about the difficulties and the benefits and all the reasons why you should work through the. The persistence that it takes to make a good case study. Any final thoughts for someone that is saying, you know what, I should probably do one.

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
Yeah. So if I can probably leave your listeners with one last thought, it will be that, yes, your data is important, but the stories are what builds the trust. So in a word, that is getting noisier by a second. And we are seeing this really clearly. An authentic case studies, I would say the only thing that proves that you actually do what you say you can do. So whether you’re a developer looking at the technical specs or a CEO looking at the bottom of the line, remember that we aren’t just moving the files and code. We are moving missions forward. That’s the most important thing, I would say.

Adam Weeks:
I love that. Tell good stories. Tell the stories of your clients. And it helps when that your clients are doing really cool stuff for, like, the world. Congratulations on this case study, Elena. If someone wants to find out more about you and find out more about the work you do, where on the Internet can they find you?

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
I would say go to the website Servebolt. Com, check for the Our article section and look for the case studies.

Adam Weeks:
Very good. And I assume you’re on, like, LinkedIn and all the socials and all that as well. Very cool. Well, Elena, thank you so much for your time. It’s been a pleasure. I’ve learned a lot. My name is Adam Weeks for Open Channels FM. We will see you guys all hopefully very, very soon.

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
Bye.

Adam Weeks:
Bye.

Elena Yovcheva-Tileva:
Thank you for having me. Bye.